SOW and multi core rigs

[Jolly]

There does seem to be some overiding factor that ruins the fps on the game.
No matter what graphics options I tweak, the game still stutters along between 4 - 10fps.
I thought that the main hog would be the units settings. ie reducing them to the lowest graphics setting would make a difference, but the fps still remained about the same.
So it seems the graphics engine is maxed out. People may get some small variations but 5 - 10fps seems about the average, no matter what kit it runs on.

I did think that there must be huge AI calculations going on for running the whole of sum of many battlefield scenarios, loads of other stuff going on that must make great demands on the computer memory. Its wonderful to watch all this other activity that you are not directly involved in going on, allbeit with lots of stuttering/slowdown.

I must say this is a peach of a game, addictive and exciting. Well done guys.

Davidd

ps - a future official add-on by Norbsoft would be fantastic for this game!

[norb]

I can get 20-30 at some points, but it does run very slow during heated battles. The factors there must be based on the game logic.

1. more units running AI
2. more units marching
3. more units finding targets to fire upon and doing los calculations
4. more smoke

So most of these things are just based on the large amounts of units on the screen.

[Arkley0712]

Another game I play called "Combat Mission Shock Force" had very low FPS even on high-end systems when it first came out but the developers managed to get a really big increase in FPS with a patch.

I think the way they fixed it was by identifying textures used by the game that didn't have the correct LOD (level of detail) files, and also by copying some sort of "trick" used by RTS games in the way they do the ground texture - but I can't remember what the trick was. I think it had something to do with pasting a texture down once and then copying it lots of times for the further away bits of the ground rather than using a unique ground texture every time. Hopefully Norb will know what I mean from that description.

LOD seems a big factor. Games with big development budgets will typically have dozens of separate pieces of art to represent the amound of detail of objects seen at various ranges from the camera - with each piece of art taking up progressively less memory the further away it has to be drawn by the graphics card. What you don't want is for the graphics card to be struggling to draw every leaf and twig of a tree into an area of the screen only a few pixels wide as all of the detail will be lost anyway.

Hopefully Norb can sort it out.

[Wolfe_CH]

Arkley0712 wrote:

Another game I play called "Combat Mission Shock Force" had very low FPS even on high-end systems when it first came out but the developers managed to get a really big increase in FPS with a patch.

I think the way they fixed it was by identifying textures used by the game that didn't have the correct LOD (level of detail) files, and also by copying some sort of "trick" used by RTS games in the way they do the ground texture - but I can't remember what the trick was.

Unfortunately, SOW just isn't limited by the video card. Setting SOW to 1024x768 and no AA versus 1680x1050 and 2xAA makes no difference in the speed of the game, even on my decidedly lower mid-end 7600GT. Unlike 99% of 3D games out there which are heavily dependent on video card prowess, SOW is very much limited by the CPU.

Which brings me to a question for norb: Is it possible to reduce the number of sounds that can play simultaneously? Over the years I've noticed that sounds can be very taxing if turned to the max on various games.

Alternatively, is there any way to reduce the distance at which certain sounds can be heard in the game without the SDK? This could be done with TC2M's SDK (gamesounds.csv).

- Chris

[norb]

You need the SDK to mod the sounds. The game plays the default 32 and there is no way to mod that, but you can mod the distances.

I wish we had the resources to get a good sound engine, but they are a little pricey for us right now. So we use the default Direct3D Sound. It's pretty straight forward.

[Michael Slaunwhite]

Hi.

I have a dual core, I run winxp (32bit) with 4gig of ram.

While running the game, I brought up my windows task manager, went to processes, and right clicked SOWGB.EXE, then I selected "set Affinity". You will see which CPU's are being used. If only one is being used, and you have 2, activate the 2nd one as well, then go back into the game (I suggest that you do this before your actually playing any scenario...main menu is fine).

I have noticed that both CPU's are being used on my machine while playing the game, and cpu is equal in it's usage.

I found this little trick out while looking for a fps boost in Microsoft Simulator X. Some people said it gave them an fps boost, others said it seemed to be the same.

Oh, one more thing...I am not responsible for any explosions, or anyone taking a hammer to their desktop because of this....this is only a suggestion...and I am not to be confused with someone who thinks he knows anything other than what his wife tells him.

Hope this helps...

[norb]

There is much threading in windows and in directx, so there is probably a lot of use of all processors without us enabling anything in the code.

[rckgunny]

is 16 gigs of ram very good ? maybe i have too much ram? i only have to use deul graphics cards 2 nvidia 260gs OC cards, is a 1 tb memory too much for this game?
if 1 of the single player senarios ctd's does that mean theres something wrong with the senario?

rckgunny

[Chamberlain]

mikesla,

What key combination did you use to get get task manager up during the game.

I also remember there was a download, maybe Microsoft, a few years back that was supposed to split up and use dual core more evenly.

I have dual core and would like to see if both are being used.

Chamberlain

[ADukes]

There's never too much RAM and the scenarios are okay. The problem probably is the operating system and/or the program limits. On 32bit OSs the maximum useable memory size is 3.5GB and 32bit programs are limited to a maximum of 2GB addressable memory.